When I was in grade school (late 80s), we had to do a book report on any book from a list of 15 or so books. At the time, I was really only interested in reading science fiction, so, since F451 was on the list, I read it. I loved the book. And it has stuck with me.
I don't know if it would be fair to say that teachers don't want students to know something they don't. Any one person can not know everything, and I think most teachers know that. From my own personal experience with teaching friends and relatives about computers, I know that I enjoy it much more when I see them learning completely new things _on their own_ and then getting excited about it, and telling me about it. It's sorta like collaborative learning. Give them ideas, or a direction, and let them explore things that interest them.
I'm sure that this happens at a lower level in grade schools than it does in colleges, but the fact is, teachers (for the most part) are not as selfish or narrow-minded as you portray them.
But, anyway, the funny part of this story is that I ended up getting an A on my book report on F451, and then for the next 3 or 4 years, I reused the same report, with updated vocab words, cause I'm so lazy.
I was discussing something like this the other day with my friend, on the subject of the ILOVEYOU virus that recently went around.
How about some AI to detect patterns in emails being sent in and out. Say, an email comes in with the subject "ILOVEYOU" with an attachment of a certain size, and a specific body. Then, suddenly, there are 25 more emails that come through with the same exact content, or very similar. Then there's 100 more of them. It would be great if the mail server could detect this type of pattern or irregular activity, and trigger some action, such as alerting an admin, or even going so far as checking the emails against an anti-virus authority, and blocking them.
Of course, AI would come in extra handy here if the virus was implenting some morphism, and not every virus email being sent had the same exact contents.
This is probably not the most creative use of AI, but I think it would be a great feature anyway.
The same effect has been caused when driving down a tree-lined road on a sunny day, when the periods of light and dark caused by the trees' shadows happen to be at the right frequency.
I have experienced this many times. I get this kind of blackout feeling, like I've lost consciousness for a brief second or two. It used to happen to me on the school bus, when I would be sleepy in the morning, and the light would flash at some frequency from the trees outside, and I would suddenly feel like I blacked out.
I actually had a car accident that I believe was caused by this type of effect. Does anyone have any more information on this type of "seizure/blackout"?
You can pre-order the CDC-MP3 from Crutchfield right now at http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-d3nKX9Z0iVA/P rodView.asp?s=0&c=3&g=300&I=570CDCMP3&o= M&a=0
It's $299, and I was able to get free shipping somehow... According to their sales rep, there are currently 97 pre-orders, and that increased from 70 yesterday. I'm hoping I got in on the first 100!
1) Once again: Availability of MamboX P300 2) Features of the MamboX P300 3) Wanted: Your opinion 4) Tonight on TV 5) Delay in eMail response
1) It is getting embarassing. Tagram let us wait. Since there has not been much progress in march, Tagram have released a letter to all their customers. We have included their letter with this mail (Tagrams letter can be found at http://www.mambox.com and http://www.mp3.com). The date mentioned in this letter, 10th of april, does not seem very probable, as Tagram have not yet managed to send us sampels from the serial production. Yesterday evening Tagram told us, that the "P300 will be released this month - with a probability of 90 percent". Tgaram have sent sampels to the FDC for approval, so we can awiat some testing results next week.
2) Tagram said that the P300 will not have a text display. There have been different featurelists on Tagrams Website (http://www.mambox.com/p300.htm und http://www.mambox.com/faq.htm), one claiming the P300 features textdiplay.
3) As the partnership with Tagram has been a good but not very fruitful one, we have been looking for alternatives once more - and found one. Actually, there is quite a lot of MP3-CD-Players announced on the internet but none of these will be released before 4th quarter. The manufacturer of this device, we call it "818", has been very reliable so far. Serial production for this MP3-CD-Player has already started and it is only waiting for CE-approval, so it can be sold in the E.U. We have already been given samples from the serial production, and thus have been able to test the "818" extensively. THis MP3-CD-Player does not feature everything but should cover most users' needs at a very attarctive price of about 174 Euros. The unit weight is 265grs. and it looks like a "normal" discman. It features: bitrates mono 16-32kBit/s, stereo 96-192kBit/s, variable bitrates of all quality levels (time displayed is not exact with VBR); find MP3-files in sub-directories (we tested it up to! 10 levels deep); Non-MP3-files are skipped; 50 seconds anti-shock memory; playback of Audio-CDs; EQ with 6 presets; playbck modes: All files, intro-scan, current track only, random play, current sub-directory only, playback order of sub-directories and songs is programmable (DirProg and Prog); recharge-function for NiCd-batteries; 8minutes voice-recording function with external microphone connector [no kidding]; power-supply, blank CD-R and probably a set of NiCd-batteries is included. It does not support CD-RW, reads first session fof multisession CDs. What do you think of the "818"? Please let us know.
4) Tonight, the "828" Mp3-Cd-Player will be on German TV-Station "Nord3" which can be received via Astra satellite 11.582/H. Programme will commence at 19.10CET. We will introduce the "818" on our website next week.
5) Wir want to apologize for the delays in asnwering your eMial-requests that have occured since last week. This is mainly due to a server problem. We hope to have this problem solved before the weekend.
Best regards, your team from maxtek
------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------- From: Jason Moh, Director of Product Marketing To: All MAMBO-X P300 Enthusiasts Date: March 21, 2000
I have been receiving an average of 300 emails a day. 90% of them are asking me "When is the release date?" and "Why is it taking so long?" I would like to return all emails and explain what's going on but that's impossible when I receive 300 emails a day. I also hesitate to respond because I am more frustrated than all of the MP3 enthusiasts that are not able to purchase the Mambo-X. I am frustrated because whenever the factory notified us of the shipping date, something always came up.
I just took a trip to the factory overseas. I saw the actual sample working. I think the best answer for "why" is that we developed Mambo-X from the ground up. As a result, it has taken much longer than we expected. We did once think about abandoning this project, but the overwhelming response from the MP3 enthusiasts resellers made us focus and move on; even though it has been delayed and delayed.
Now we come to a point where I must lay out the facts. The mechanical sample was already done and working samples, as of today, are in assembly. The first scheduled production will be the week of April 10th. In other words, the factory will start shipping later that week. Once the mechanical sample is completed, it means that most of the development is done and we shall let the working samples do the fine-tuning. I saw the mechanical sample, so the shipping date is not far away.
I sincerely apologize for any anxiety, confusion, or concerns that all of you, the MP3 enthusiasts, have put up with during the Mambo-X development. Once again, thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Jason Moh Director of Product Marketing Tagram System Corporation ------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------
Wrapster simply wraps valid MP3 header information around the binary file you're Wrapping, and saves it with a.mp3 extension.
It gives it values of 32KB/s bit rate, and 32K Frequency. So, in Napster, you simply set your Advanced Search fields to look for only files equal to those values, and do a search on whatever term you're looking for. I have yet to actually find any Wrapster files on Napster.
What would be really cool is if you could define ID3 tag information to be saved as part of the archive, because Napster would be able to search through that information, and it would make things a ton easier. Does Napster support ID3v2? This would allow complete descriptions of the archive to be searched through.
And of course, I have "stupid", "idiot", and my file server is "biglug".
These are all running Windows 98. When they crash, I can actually yell at them, and insult them at the same time.
Imagine having these names at your disposable to be able to freely yell at the boxes without feeling guilty.
Other good ones:
weirdo dud flamer bottlenose sugarface dillsmack liverlips penileimplant nipplewurst stinkmeat kannniggit pimplefinger bill maggotpie
And of course, there are many others. Feel free to call your machines by these names! The more you do it, the better you'll feel. You can truly show that you are the dominant one in your technology relationship.
Yep, I must throw in my support here. I have about 3100 songs in MP3 format at home (10 gig) and I like almost ALL of them. The music I listen to is very much affected by my mood. My tastes range from punk/ska/rock/alternative/rap/hip hop/classical/classic rock/techno. Most of my stuff is music you'd never hear on the radio, and as somebody else who replied here said, often the entire album is great!
I have been thinking about picking up an Empeg Car player to throw all my stuff onto, but it's still way too expensive. This new 4 gig drive player may be just what I need. And my main use will be car playing, so I can use the cigarette lighter adapter.
Anybody have any problems using The Matrix DVD in their computer? My friend has an Encore DXR 6x, I think, and I was thinking about getting this as a present for him. Will it work?
Woo! I have been waiting, hoping, and sweating over a device like this! Although the article says you can store up to 100 mp3s on one cd, that's a little off. You can get ~11.5 hours of 128k encoded mp3s onto a 650mb cd-r/w, which, figuring an average of 4 minutes per song, is 172 songs.
I already have a bunch of mp3-cds made, and listen to them at work with Winamp all the time. I would LOVE to be able to use these cds in the car, or anywhere. Definitely worth the $300 to me.
There's also another one of these devices coming soon, called the Eclectic CP200, from Vertical Horizon, Inc. They're currently in a beta testing process. Check it out at http://www.evhi.com/ and click on the Portable one. Also, check out the way cool headphones with built rio-type mp3 player.
I wonder how exactly they expect the MP3-CD format to be. Sub-folder seperated by artist? Can you switch between playlists, or just folders, or just song-to-song? It sounds like it supports ID3 from the article.
I believe it is true that in certain areas of this country, as well as other parts of the world (I can't remember any specific examples, but beetles come to mind...) they have brought in certain animals or insects to control the population of another animal or insect. But, this has gone wrong, and they end up with either huge amounts of one, or they end up affecting something totally unexpected.
So, what scares me is the thought of the effect of making new viruses and using them on people or animals. They could have some totally unexpected result. Or they could mutate and create some kind of mass-killer virus.
Are my fears unfounded, or is there a danger in this?
All of your comments make sense, but how can they really control that kind of thing? I already own a current version of an MP3 encoder, so there's no way for them to put in the "extra feature" of watermarking/fingerprinting and force me to use that one, right?
The MP3s I make will continue to be made the same way with the same software. And if I owned a Rio, and didn't install flash updates or software updates, wouldn't any MP3 I made with my current software still work?
"However, MP3s ripped from new CDs will be unusable if downloaded from the Net." I'm not sure how that's supposed to work. Can't I just buy a new cd, rip it, upload it, and anybody in the world will be able to download it and play it in winamp or their Rio? Clarification? Ian.
All I want is a disc-man kinda player that will play cds as well as cd-rs full of mp3s. I think I remember a slashdot story on here a while back about that exact type of thing, but I haven't heard anything about it since.
Man, that would be great... I could fit my 3 gig collection onto about 4 cd-rs... 50 hours of music! On 4 cds! Crazy playlists! And if I had 4 cd-rom drives in my computer, I wouldn't have to use up all that space on my hard drive, I could just leave the 4 cds in the drives all the time!! OMG!!!
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.nullsoft.com/free/aimazing/
Source code included! Apparently, AOL took it off of Firehouse, but forgot about Nullsoft's own website. Heh heh.
And, just in case they take it off of that website, you can still get it (a slightly older version) from BetaNews, right here:
http://fileforum.efront.com/d etail.php3?fid=968658671
When I was in grade school (late 80s), we had to do a book report on any book from a list of 15 or so books. At the time, I was really only interested in reading science fiction, so, since F451 was on the list, I read it. I loved the book. And it has stuck with me.
I don't know if it would be fair to say that teachers don't want students to know something they don't. Any one person can not know everything, and I think most teachers know that. From my own personal experience with teaching friends and relatives about computers, I know that I enjoy it much more when I see them learning completely new things _on their own_ and then getting excited about it, and telling me about it. It's sorta like collaborative learning. Give them ideas, or a direction, and let them explore things that interest them.
I'm sure that this happens at a lower level in grade schools than it does in colleges, but the fact is, teachers (for the most part) are not as selfish or narrow-minded as you portray them.
But, anyway, the funny part of this story is that I ended up getting an A on my book report on F451, and then for the next 3 or 4 years, I reused the same report, with updated vocab words, cause I'm so lazy.
I was discussing something like this the other day with my friend, on the subject of the ILOVEYOU virus that recently went around.
How about some AI to detect patterns in emails being sent in and out. Say, an email comes in with the subject "ILOVEYOU" with an attachment of a certain size, and a specific body. Then, suddenly, there are 25 more emails that come through with the same exact content, or very similar. Then there's 100 more of them. It would be great if the mail server could detect this type of pattern or irregular activity, and trigger some action, such as alerting an admin, or even going so far as checking the emails against an anti-virus authority, and blocking them.
Of course, AI would come in extra handy here if the virus was implenting some morphism, and not every virus email being sent had the same exact contents.
This is probably not the most creative use of AI, but I think it would be a great feature anyway.
I have experienced this many times. I get this kind of blackout feeling, like I've lost consciousness for a brief second or two. It used to happen to me on the school bus, when I would be sleepy in the morning, and the light would flash at some frequency from the trees outside, and I would suddenly feel like I blacked out.
I actually had a car accident that I believe was caused by this type of effect. Does anyone have any more information on this type of "seizure/blackout"?
The entire Aiwa line of head units has an auxiliary input on the front.
You can pre-order the CDC-MP3 from Crutchfield right now at http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-d3nKX9Z0iVA/P rodView.asp?s=0&c=3&g=300&I=570CDCMP3&o= M&a=0
It's $299, and I was able to get free shipping somehow... According to their sales rep, there are currently 97 pre-orders, and that increased from 70 yesterday. I'm hoping I got in on the first 100!
[English version]
- ----------------------------
- ----------------------------
+++++++++++> MAXTEK Newsletter HTTP://WWW.MAXTEK.DE ++++++++++
Dear customers and subscribers!
The topics of this newsletter are:
1) Once again: Availability of MamboX P300
2) Features of the MamboX P300
3) Wanted: Your opinion
4) Tonight on TV
5) Delay in eMail response
1) It is getting embarassing. Tagram let us wait. Since there has not been much
progress in march, Tagram have released a letter to all their customers. We have
included their letter with this mail (Tagrams letter can be found at
http://www.mambox.com and http://www.mp3.com). The date mentioned in this
letter, 10th of april, does not seem very probable, as Tagram have not yet
managed to send us sampels from the serial production.
Yesterday evening Tagram told us, that the "P300 will be released this month -
with a probability of 90 percent". Tgaram have sent sampels to the FDC for
approval, so we can awiat some testing results next week.
2) Tagram said that the P300 will not have a text display. There have been
different featurelists on Tagrams Website (http://www.mambox.com/p300.htm und
http://www.mambox.com/faq.htm), one claiming the P300 features textdiplay.
3) As the partnership with Tagram has been a good but not very fruitful one, we
have been looking for alternatives once more - and found one. Actually, there is
quite a lot of MP3-CD-Players announced on the internet but none of these will
be released before 4th quarter. The manufacturer of this device, we call it
"818", has been very reliable so far. Serial production for this MP3-CD-Player
has already started and it is only waiting for CE-approval, so it can be sold in
the E.U. We have already been given samples from the serial production, and thus
have been able to test the "818" extensively. THis MP3-CD-Player does not
feature everything but should cover most users' needs at a very attarctive price
of about 174 Euros. The unit weight is 265grs. and it looks like a "normal"
discman. It features: bitrates mono 16-32kBit/s, stereo 96-192kBit/s, variable
bitrates of all quality levels (time displayed is not exact with VBR); find
MP3-files in sub-directories (we tested it up to!
10 levels deep); Non-MP3-files are skipped; 50 seconds anti-shock memory;
playback of Audio-CDs; EQ with 6 presets; playbck modes: All files, intro-scan,
current track only, random play, current sub-directory only, playback order of
sub-directories and songs is programmable (DirProg and Prog); recharge-function
for NiCd-batteries; 8minutes voice-recording function with external microphone
connector [no kidding]; power-supply, blank CD-R and probably a set of
NiCd-batteries is included. It does not support CD-RW, reads first session fof
multisession CDs.
What do you think of the "818"? Please let us know.
4) Tonight, the "828" Mp3-Cd-Player will be on German TV-Station "Nord3" which
can be received via Astra satellite 11.582/H. Programme will commence at
19.10CET. We will introduce the "818" on our website next week.
5) Wir want to apologize for the delays in asnwering your eMial-requests that
have occured since last week. This is mainly due to a server problem. We hope to
have this problem solved before the weekend.
Best regards,
your team from maxtek
-----------------------------------------------
From: Jason Moh, Director of Product Marketing
To: All MAMBO-X P300 Enthusiasts
Date: March 21, 2000
I have been receiving an average of 300 emails a day. 90% of them are asking me
"When is the release date?" and "Why is it taking so long?" I would like to
return all emails and explain what's going on but that's impossible when I
receive 300 emails a day. I also hesitate to respond because I am more
frustrated than all of the MP3 enthusiasts that are not able to purchase the
Mambo-X. I am frustrated because whenever the factory notified us of the
shipping date, something always came up.
I just took a trip to the factory overseas. I saw the actual sample working. I
think the best answer for "why" is that we developed Mambo-X from the ground up.
As a result, it has taken much longer than we expected. We did once think about
abandoning this project, but the overwhelming response from the MP3 enthusiasts
resellers made us focus and move on; even though it has been delayed and
delayed.
Now we come to a point where I must lay out the facts. The mechanical sample was
already done and working samples, as of today, are in assembly. The first
scheduled production will be the week of April 10th. In other words, the factory
will start shipping later that week. Once the mechanical sample is completed, it
means that most of the development is done and we shall let the working samples
do the fine-tuning. I saw the mechanical sample, so the shipping date is not far
away.
I sincerely apologize for any anxiety, confusion, or concerns that all of you,
the MP3 enthusiasts, have put up with during the Mambo-X development. Once
again, thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Jason Moh
Director of Product Marketing
Tagram System Corporation
-----------------------------------------------
Wrapster simply wraps valid MP3 header information around the binary file you're Wrapping, and saves it with a .mp3 extension.
It gives it values of 32KB/s bit rate, and 32K Frequency. So, in Napster, you simply set your Advanced Search fields to look for only files equal to those values, and do a search on whatever term you're looking for. I have yet to actually find any Wrapster files on Napster.
What would be really cool is if you could define ID3 tag information to be saved as part of the archive, because Napster would be able to search through that information, and it would make things a ton easier. Does Napster support ID3v2? This would allow complete descriptions of the archive to be searched through.
Very creative hack, though.
Seriously? I wasn't around when the original was released in 77.
Star Wars: A New Hope, on video, and when it was re-released as the Special Edition, says that it is Episode IV in the opening story.
This was added in only after The Empire Strikes Back?
I like to call my machines names.
My dial-up server is "sucker".
One workstation is "loser".
Another one is "retard".
And of course, I have "stupid", "idiot", and my file server is "biglug".
These are all running Windows 98. When they crash, I can actually yell at them, and insult them at the same time.
Imagine having these names at your disposable to be able to freely yell at the boxes without feeling guilty.
Other good ones:
weirdo
dud
flamer
bottlenose
sugarface
dillsmack
liverlips
penileimplant
nipplewurst
stinkmeat
kannniggit
pimplefinger
bill
maggotpie
And of course, there are many others. Feel free to call your machines by these names! The more you do it, the better you'll feel. You can truly show that you are the dominant one in your technology relationship.
Agape,
Suqur.
I have been thinking about picking up an Empeg Car player to throw all my stuff onto, but it's still way too expensive. This new 4 gig drive player may be just what I need. And my main use will be car playing, so I can use the cigarette lighter adapter.
There are also some cool players that will use MP3-CDs that are supposed to be shown off at comdex. Check out http://www.pineusa.com/ and http://www.evhi.com/.
I think it's funny that the AMD Athlon 700 processor beats out Intel's flagship 733Mhz beast in many tests. Check out Ace's Hardware's benchmarks.
Yeah, but, come on, man!!! You can have about 7 and a half WEEKS worth of music on that drive! acckkk drool ugg heart attack
And imagine if you put four of these in a RAID... music for a lifetime. wow.
:/
MP3: not just an addiction -- a way of life
Anybody have any problems using The Matrix DVD in their computer? My friend has an Encore DXR 6x, I think, and I was thinking about getting this as a present for him. Will it work?
Woo! I have been waiting, hoping, and sweating over a device like this! Although the article says you can store up to 100 mp3s on one cd, that's a little off. You can get ~11.5 hours of 128k encoded mp3s onto a 650mb cd-r/w, which, figuring an average of 4 minutes per song, is 172 songs.
I already have a bunch of mp3-cds made, and listen to them at work with Winamp all the time. I would LOVE to be able to use these cds in the car, or anywhere. Definitely worth the $300 to me.
There's also another one of these devices coming soon, called the Eclectic CP200, from Vertical Horizon, Inc. They're currently in a beta testing process. Check it out at http://www.evhi.com/ and click on the Portable one. Also, check out the way cool headphones with built rio-type mp3 player.
I wonder how exactly they expect the MP3-CD format to be. Sub-folder seperated by artist? Can you switch between playlists, or just folders, or just song-to-song? It sounds like it supports ID3 from the article.
Yes!! I'm excited.
Ian.
Well, the rumoured X-Box from Microsoft(/Intel) is said to be open for development. True to the Microsoft fashion.
Ian.
Everybody knows why color palms are a good thing:
/wonder/ they call it the Palm V.
pr0n! WHY ELSE???
No
I believe it is true that in certain areas of this country, as well as other parts of the world (I can't remember any specific examples, but beetles come to mind...) they have brought in certain animals or insects to control the population of another animal or insect. But, this has gone wrong, and they end up with either huge amounts of one, or they end up affecting something totally unexpected.
So, what scares me is the thought of the effect of making new viruses and using them on people or animals. They could have some totally unexpected result. Or they could mutate and create some kind of mass-killer virus.
Are my fears unfounded, or is there a danger in this?
What's that?
I want to see a contest to find the oldest PC user to date. How about the oldest Slashdot reader?
Come, you 100+ somethings, you know you're out there. Give us a little "hello."
All of your comments make sense, but how can they really control that kind of thing? I already own a current version of an MP3 encoder, so there's no way for them to put in the "extra feature" of watermarking/fingerprinting and force me to use that one, right?
The MP3s I make will continue to be made the same way with the same software. And if I owned a Rio, and didn't install flash updates or software updates, wouldn't any MP3 I made with my current software still work?
Am I missing something?
Ian.
"However, MP3s ripped from new CDs will be unusable if downloaded from the Net." I'm not sure how that's supposed to work. Can't I just buy a new cd, rip it, upload it, and anybody in the world will be able to download it and play it in winamp or their Rio? Clarification? Ian.
According to msnbc last night, the film was valued at over $60,000. Whew.
Was that supposed to be sarcastic? I couldn't really tell.
Ian.
Man, that would be great... I could fit my 3 gig collection onto about 4 cd-rs... 50 hours of music! On 4 cds! Crazy playlists! And if I had 4 cd-rom drives in my computer, I wouldn't have to use up all that space on my hard drive, I could just leave the 4 cds in the drives all the time!! OMG!!!
Ah, it's nice to fantasize. = )
Ian.